The Disney beignets (you know, the ones in the shape of Mickey Mouse) are so adorable, they can’t possibly be easy to make, right? Wrong. In fact, Disney just shared the coveted recipe online, meaning your weekend just got a bit more exciting…and probably a lot messier.
The company has been on a recipe sharing spree as of late. Some of the park’s fan-favorite menu items—including their famous churros, french toast, and cookie fries—are being shared on the Disney Parks Blog so fans stuck at home have something to do during to the coronavirus pandemic.
After patiently waiting for the Disney beignets recipe to drop, it’s finally here. The delicious treats, made from fried dough and covered with white powder, are usually served at Disney World and Disneyland. However, since both parks are closed indefinitely, you can keep the magic alive by experiencing the sugary goodness at home.
Though they look a little complicated to make, they really aren’t. All you need are the following simple ingredients for this recipe, which serves 10 large Mickey-shaped beignets or two dozen small beignets.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Sprinkle yeast over warm water in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve. Let stand for 5 minutes.
Combine sugar, shortening, salt, heavy cream, egg, flour and boiling water in a large bowl; stir in yeast mixture. With the dough hook attachment of an electric mixer on medium speed, mix the dough just until combined and smooth. Let dough rest for 30 minutes.
Roll to ¼-inch thickness and cut individual beignets with a Mickey Mouse-shaped cutter or cut into 2 ½ to 3-inch squares. 5. Cover with a towel and let dough rise until doubled in size in a warm, draft-free area, about 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Using caution, heat 3 inches of vegetable oil to 350°F in a deep, heavy pot over medium-high heat. Fry beignets until golden brown, about 2 to 3 minutes, turning as soon as they brown on one side. Remove with tongs and place on paper towels to drain. 7. Dust warm beignets with powdered sugar and serve immediately.
Don’t believe you can do it? Check out these Instagram posts:
Disney also recommends eating these while watching The Princess and the Frog on Disney+, so you’ll know where to find us until this quarantine is over.
America’s morning show anchors—like Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie on the Today show, or Gayle King on CBS This Morning—are in a unique position during a crisis like the coronavirus. They’re not only providing factual information and updates to millions of Americans but offering a steady voice and presence in a chaotic time.
But they’re also just people trying to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. Kotb, who is beloved by Today fans for her warmth and daily on-air “boosts,” showed that very relatable human side on Friday morning, March 27. After interviewing New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees about his family’s $5 million donation to COVID-19 relief efforts in Louisiana, she was visibly shaken and in tears. (Kotb worked for years in New Orleans and often talks about her love of Brees and the Saints on the show.)
As Kotb tried to gather herself in the studio and kept saying “sorry,” her co-anchor Guthrie (who is broadcasting from her home) said, “Oh Hoda, I know, it’s a lot. Hoda, I’m so sorry, hun. It’s a lot. I know where your heart is, I do,” before taking over the next story tease. The two discussed the moment later on Today. “You sort of look around for someone to hug just because—that’s also part of it,” Kotb said,
The response on social media to Kotb was heartwarming. “May sound weird, but Hoda Kotb crying on the @TODAYshow after interviewing Drew Brees was what I needed this morning. She kept apologizing. She didn’t need to. We’re all in this, and it’s hurting us all,” one person tweeted. Another said, “I think we are all Hoda right now.”
“Watching @hodakotb show emotion after a piece on her home is the most human thing I’ve seen. We love you Hoda! @TODAYshow,” wrote a third person.
North West continues to be way chicer and cooler than all the adults on earth combined. Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West’s 6-year-old daughter took the stage at the Yeezy show at Paris Fashion Week on Monday (March 2) and effortlessly rapped as models strutted up and down the runway. Yes, you read that correctly: North West is now officially in the rap game. We’re sure her father, one of the most prolific hip hop artists ever, is so proud.
In fact, I can say with relative certainty that he is. Just look at the smile on his face when he joins North on stage. This is the famous-person equivalent of a parent cheering their kid on at a community soccer game—except instead of Gatorade and apple slices, we have a sea of cream-colored couture.
Fashionista editor in chief Tyler McCall was at the show and posted a video of North to her Twitter:
And check out these video screen grabs from Kardashian West’s Instagram Stories that were also posted to Twitter:
Where is North’s Grammy? Her American Music Award? Her Pulitzer Prize? The only thing that would’ve made this better is if her siblings (Saint, Chicago, and Psalm) joined her on stage. Oh, well. There’s always the next Yeezy fashion show.
“A house of four is wild,” Kardashian said on The View about her children. “But complete. Very balanced.”
When asked if she’d be having more children, she said, “Absolutely no more.” She added, “When you have to be responsible for every single soul and morning…. I can’t even begin to tell you what getting ready in the morning is like…I do [have help]…and I love everyone who has been so helpful. But my husband is on this no-help kick, so I’m like, ‘Okay, you try the morning.’”
Here’s hoping an album is North West’s future. I’m ready for her to stampede the charts.
Do you know what’s giving me all the energy I need right now? This video of Beyoncé not having it with a woman chatting up Jay-Z at a basketball game. Who needs coffee when you have Bey serving up some piping-hot shade, am I right?
OK, I’m mildly kidding. For all we know, Beyoncé isn’t being shady at all in this clip. Maybe the cameras just caught her in a moment when her face wasn’t “on.” Smiling all the time can be exhausting—even for superhuman deities like Queen B.
Let’s back up for a second and give some context: Beyoncé and Jay-Z attended Game Three of the NBA Finals in Oakland, California on Wednesday night (June 5) and were seated court-side, naturally. A woman, whose name we don’t know, sat to the left of Beyoncé, and at one point she leaned over her to have a discussion with Jay-Z. Bey’s face as this is happening seemingly transitions from all smiles to pure annoyance. That’s what fans on the Internet are positing, at least—but take a look at the video for yourself, below.
Whatever the case, the Twitter reactions to this moment are hilarious. “I would leave the Earth if Beyoncé looked this ready to smack me,” one fan posted, while another said, “Mood: Beyoncé dissociating at a basketball [game] while a white woman talks over her.”
Of course, there were some “Becky with the good hair” jokes. (Remember that moniker from Lemonade? It was used in the song “Sorry” to describe “the other woman” in a cheating narrative.) “This ‘Becky with the good hair’ bout to get her wig split,” one fan joked online. “Y’all Beckys really keep trying Beyoncé as if she doesn’t have a Cancer sister named Solange,” wrote someone else.
Check out more reactions to this moment for yourself, below:
Seriously, this is urgent news. How else are you going to believe these two aren’t feuding? Never mind that Kensington Palace publicly shut down this rumor a few months ago. Oh, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick refresher: Toward the end of last year, stories began circulating that Middleton and Markle didn’t exactly have the friendliest relationship. There was no basis to these reports—just anonymous royal sources—but they were weighty enough to warrant a documentary special, Kate v. Meghan: Princesses at War? Markle and Middleton aren’t even princesses!
Even though it’s 2019 and we logically know these two grown women have more important things to do than hate each other, the feud rumors persist. But wait: Now they’re hugging, which means people have to believe there’s no drama. The embrace seen ’round the world happened Monday, March 11 during a Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in London. Middleton arrived to the event after Markle and greeted her with a warm hug and what might even be a kiss on the cheek. Whoa!
Check out the pic for yourself, below:
RICHARD POHLE/AFP/Getty Images
Markle wore a cream-colored Victoria Beckham dress for the occasion, while Middleton wore a gorgeous red coat by Catherine Walker. Markle’s face here says it all—and by “all,” I mean, “Yes, this is my sister-in-law with whom I have a normal, healthy adult relationship.” That’s what I think, at least. Markle has a child on the way, people. Do you think she has time to worry about shading Middleton? And the same goes for Kate Middleton. No, she’s not pregnant, but she’s Kate Middleton! She’s too good for petty feuds—as is Meghan Markle. Let’s hug it out with these rumors and move on.
When Glamour asked me to update a scene from Nora Ephron’s beloved film You’ve Got Mail for its twentieth anniversary, I was confronted with a challenge many screenwriters face today: Can any moment of mistaken identity or unplanned coincidence (both of which have led to some of the greatest movie scenes in history) happen now, in a world where any answer is at our fingertips and devices help us see around every corner? Not to mention that we live in a society where nearly every IRL love story today begins with an Internet connection. Could any scene from You’ve Got Mail even exist today?
Rather than surrender, I asked myself, WWKKD? (What would Kathleen Kelly Do?) Undoubtedly she would, with plucky determination, rewrite the assignment. Just as she reimagined her professional ambitions in the film and concluded that rather than stem the tide of American capitalism, she’d find herself a new dream. So I set a new goal: to reimagine the entire story of You’ve Got Mail for a new era, exploring what kind of old-fashioned romance might lurk in a plugged-in 2018 when we all Always Have Mail. Here goes.
Kathleen Kelly is an adorable New Yorker with a cute apartment in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, which any real estate agent will tell you is “the new Upper West Side.” Her love of children and whimsy makes her the beloved head of customer service for Amazon’s toy department, a job that allows her to make her own hours and work from her local vegan café. Most days she shares a sustainably built table there with her boyfriend, Frank, a writer for BuzzFeed whose hard-hitting listicles have earned him the respect of Manhattan’s media elite. On paper, Frank’s perfect for her. The kind of guy you don’t even have to ask to plug in your laptop’s power cord. He just knows when you need juice. And he’s happy to listen to Kathleen vent about her job—lately she’s been rattled by an email from Amazon top brass, alerting her that they’re planning to close down her division in light of the fact that iPads basically contain all the toys, so why bother making an object that does only one thing?
At least, so says Joe Fox, senior executive at Amazon corporate. Joe’s living the urban American Dream in every way, from his Tribeca penthouse to his girlfriend, a SoulCycle devotee and hard-charging literary editor who hit it big last year on the New York Times best-seller list with her nonfiction book Best American Memes. Yet, despite the fact that Joe seems to have it all figured out, he finds himself plagued by anxiety and insomnia. His therapist suggests he may be overstimulated and proposes he attend a tech-detox retreat upstate that was recently profiled by The New Yorker. The rules? No phones. No last names. No information that could reveal anyone’s identity upon returning to their regular lives.
As it happens, Kathleen finds herself heading to the very same retreat. Frank sent her there as a proxy (he’s too public a figure not to get recognized) to help research his latest BuzzFeed article, “10 Reasons Tech Detoxes Are Bullshit.”
PHOTO: WARNER BROS/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION
Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail.
At the meet and greet, Kathleen and Joe strike up a conversation and exchange only first names. They bond over a shared love for New York and their favorite place in the city, Central Park’s Sheep Meadow. They also share an anxiety that the Internet is destroying their love for this great city. Yes, the West Village brownstones are gorgeous, but when was the last time they gazed at one without looking up the price on Zillow? Yes, Cafe Lalo has wonderful, flaky pastries, but neither has been able to indulge in one since @CafeLaloLover tweeted out their calorie counts.
For the next four days, Joe and Kathleen are inseparable. With no screens to stand in their way, they have epic conversations. Sometimes they say nothing at all, both giddy from the kind of boredom they haven’t experienced since getting smartphones. The last day of the retreat, on a hike, they end up trapped in a rainstorm they might have predicted if either had had access to a weather app. It’s a recipe for movie magic, and if there were any justice in the world, they’d be kissing right now, but then they remember they’re otherwise committed.
On the eve of their happily ever after, Kathleen and Joe google each other. Just to see.
Kathleen and Joe realize they have to break up with their partners back home to give this new love a chance. They say goodbye, write down their email addresses for each other, slip them in an envelope, and vow to meet one week later. The breakups go surprisingly smoothly. Within a day Joe and Kathleen are unattached and ready to spend their lives together. The six days until their reunion cannot pass quickly enough.
But the night before they’re set to meet, they both make the same fatal mistake. In emailing each other to confirm plans, they realize the other’s address contains his/her full name. They have all they need to get the rest of the information. Neither can resist. And with that, on the eve of their happily ever after, Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox google each other. Just to see.
And just as quickly as they fell in love, Joe and Kathleen start to fall out of it from behind their respective screens. Kathleen quickly finds Joe’s profile on LinkedIn and notices that beyond the coincidence of him also working for Amazon, in a senior position to hers (which offends her feminist sensibilities), he spent a semester in college interning for a senator with a fiscally laissez-faire attitude toward shipping tariffs. At this rate, how could she ever expect Joe to commit to a relationship? And speaking of commitment, she also finds his now inactive OkCupid account, in which he misused an apostrophe—and here she thought he was her intellectual equal!
Likewise, Joe discovers damning information about Kathleen. On her Facebook page he notices that she was tagged on New Year’s Eve 2007 kissing a female friend at midnight. Yeah, fine, it was New Year’s, but they sure looked like they were into it. Joe spends all night reading blogs where women recount their attempts to date men to deny their true self before accepting that a man could never fulfill their emotional needs. Also, there is a lot of French wallpaper on her Pinterest board. Clearly the woman harbors dreams of living on cheese and wine in France one day. Joe hates France! Plus he’s lactose intolerant. How did he ever think this could work?
Needless to say, by the time they arrive at the café for their reunion, the magic is completely gone. The date is awkward, devoid of the easy rapport that came so naturally to them when they were getting to know each other in real time. At first, both are ashamed to admit the reason for their doubts, but eventually they break down, whip out their iPhones, and offer impromptu multimedia, multiplatform recaps of the other’s flaws. Both leave the date in tears.
And then Kathleen and Joe do what anyone in their positions would: They reenter the online dating pool, where you can filter for people who meet all the demands for compatibility. But while all of their matches are good on paper, they find date after date unfulfilling. They miss the magic of their connection, the surprise of not knowing what might happen, the simplicity of just getting to know a person from scratch. In spite of themselves, Joe and Kathleen think back to all they shared at that magical retreat. But how could they even begin to reach out, to repair the damage, to find their way back to each other?
And then one day New York City provides the perfect opportunity. The tristate area is hit by a terrible rainstorm that causes a rolling blackout. Cell towers are down, and before long, Kathleen’s and Joe’s devices go down with them. As rain assaults their windows, from which both are staring out sadly, Kathleen and Joe are reminded of that night they spent in the field upstate, when they almost had that perfect kiss in the downpour. Both run outside, on a mission to the same place: Sheep Meadow, Central Park. It’s empty, except for two people in the mist, at opposite ends of a field awash in color from the changing leaves.
Joe and Kathleen spot each other, slowly make their way forward, and meet in the middle.
With an adorable smile, Kathleen clarifies something to Joe: “I believe everything is a spectrum, but even on that spectrum, where zero is completely heterosexual, I’m, like, a 2.5, max.” To which Joe replies with a steadfast, yet gentle, masculinity, “If we’re being honest, I’m probably a 2.5 myself. Also, that apostrophe thing was autocorrect. Did you know that sometimes autocorrect mixes up their and they’re?” Kathleen shakes her head incredulously. She didn’t know that.What happens next is not tweeted, texted, or posted about. It just is.
Screenwriter Susanna Fogel cowrote and directed The Spy Who Dumped Me and is the author of Nuclear Family: A Tragicomic Novel in Letters. She is based in Los Angeles.
